Mr Cassini

by Lloyd Jones

  ‘I’ve been told you have a unique way of conjuring up evil spirits before you destroy them,’ I said to the cleric casually. I sampled one of the sandwiches – egg and cress in a plain white bread – and yawned comfortably in a brief ray of sunshine.

  He turned to me and, after giving me a look of horror, he tore up and swiped my picnic off the gravestone.

  ‘You mustn’t do that!’ he said angrily. ‘What in heaven’s name has got into you? Have you no respect for the dead?’

  I’d forgotten that his mores were from a different age, and I apologised profusely.

  I told him that I’d been distracted by a mission which I had undertaken, to rid the world of a monster who preyed on women and children. He was mollified by my admission, and stood quietly while I rescued the sandwiches and repacked them. We adjourned to a more suitable spot, a low wall nearby. I offered him a sandwich, and after nibbling on it suspiciously he took a good bite and munched on it ruminatively. ‘Wonderful bread,’ he said. ‘How do you get it so white? And the egg and cress is such a fine marriage, I’m sure it’ll be all the rage soon.’

  Having repaired the damage, I continued.

  ‘I believe you have a unique way of dealing with evil spirits,’ I repeated.

  ‘Indeed,’ he replied, polishing off his fourth sandwich and eyeing a trio of jam doughnuts.

  ‘Help yourself,’ I said, and he did – to all of them.

  ‘It’s quite simple,’ he said, ploughing into the third doughnut, which left a large wodge of cream on his nose. ‘I transform the spirits into beetles or small black flies and then I conjure them into a small bottle.’

  He rifled one of his inside pockets. ‘Look – I always have a bottle with me.’

  ‘And then what happens?’ I asked.

  ‘Getting rid of demons is quite easy once I’ve captured them,’ he said. ‘I simply tie a piece of lead to the bottle and toss it into the River Alun. Once they’re submerged under water they can harm no one ever again.’

  I expressed admiration for his ruse, and waited until he’d relaxed after his repast. Then I delivered the coup de grace: with a flourish, I uncovered a bottle of the finest port and two crystal glasses in a brown leather case (PC 66 never drank on duty). The Rev Griffiths was enthralled, and as he savoured his drink I asked him if he would help us to rid the world of one last fiend. It would be his masterstroke, I said.

  He acceded.

  ‘Can you be on the summit of Pumlumon Arwystli when I need you?’ I enquired.

  Moving his glass from his right hand to his left, he presented me with his hand and said:

  ‘Friend, I wouldn’t miss this opportunity for anything in the whole wide world. I shall be there.’

  He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and closed his eyes briefly, as a sign of utter contentment.

  ‘I feel obliged to ask you something, however,’ he said dreamily. ‘Are you sure that water will constrain this monster of yours, Mr Cassini?’

  ‘You have doubts, yourself?’ I asked.

  ‘Water’s all right for sorting out the small fry, but you need a good deep cave to trap a really big monster like Mr Cassini. You need a big hole where you can bury him for ever. You do realise, don’t you, that the Cassinis of this world never die? All you can do is trap them and seal them in. An oubliette, or something like that. Understand?’

  I didn’t. I didn’t understand at all, so I thought about his advice as I nibbled on an orange-flavoured Kit-Kat.

  ‘What’s an oubliette when it’s at home?’ I asked him.

  ‘It’s a dungeon below the floor, and the only way in is through a trapdoor. French speciality – they threw people in and forgot about them. Oublier is the French word for to forget. Don’t they teach you anything these days?’

  ‘OK mister,’ I said. ‘What’s your plan to get rid of him then?’

  ‘The only way you can sort him out is with words,’ he said. ‘What are you reading at the moment?’

  I started listing the books on the little table by the side of my bed, where I seem to do most of my reading these days. Water-Divining in the Foothills of Paradise, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Rings of Saturn…

  He interrupted me. ‘Any caves in them?’

  I didn’t have to think for long because I’d come across a strange story about a cave in Rings of Saturn the previous evening. I told him.

  ‘Excellent,’ he said. That’s the way to get rid of him. How many rings around Saturn?’

  ‘Seven main rings, if I’m not mistaken,’ I replied.

  ‘Even better,’ he said with unfettered pleasure. ‘When we’ve got him cornered on Pumlumon Arwystli we’ll ensnare him with words – is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, sure,’ I replied, though I had little faith in what he proposed. Still, if I was going to employ eccentrics I must expect some pretty eccentric behaviour.

  We shook hands, and after finishing the whole bottle of port with him I bade him farewell and headed off with PC 66 to our next destination – Carmarthen town.

  The next person I seek, to help me with our quest, is Merlin – or Myrddin as he’s known in Wales (he has many personae, wherever he goes).

  Although I can choose from dozens – or possibly hundreds – of different Merlins I decide to eschew the faker, impostor and itinerant trickster depicted in many of the tales. Instead, I select the kind and rather absent-minded Merlin who appears in TH White’s The Once and Future King – a magician who has already lived in the future and therefore knows what’s what. Those of you who’ve read The Once and Future King know that King Arthur – or The Wart as he’s known in the book – falls asleep in a dark forest, and when he wakes up in the morning he discovers an old man with a long white beard drawing water from a well near a cottage. Naturally, the old man is dressed in a pointed cap and a gown with embroidered stars and runic symbols. Who else could he but our old friend Merlin, in one of his many guises (remember, we have already met him as a raving lunatic living with a pig in a dripping wood on the Scottish border, so let’s wink at him, hoping he’ll wink back, and so compound our confederacy. He does!)

  ‘I know exactly why you’re here,’ he says calmly as we approach him. He’s sitting by a picnic table at Alltyfyrddin Farm, also known as the Merlin’s Hill Centre near Carmarthen.

  I’ve chosen this spot for many reasons.

  First, I’ve chosen a modern Merlin so I want a modern setting – a tourist attraction. Here’s part of the brochure blurb:

  Walk the nature trails to the Iron Age Hillfort Site and experience breathtaking views enjoyed by Merlin the wizard. According to legend, Merlin is still imprisoned there.

  Wander around the farmyard heritage centre and watch the cows being milked. Picnic area. Open daily.

  A magical day for all the family

  Diwrnod i gofio i’r holl deulu.

  In 1188, Gerald of Wales wrote that Merlin was born in Carmarthen.

  Merlin – King Arthur's guardian with magical powers – is believed to have lived in a cave on Merlin’s Hill. This cave was to serve as his home and tomb as, according to legend, he was locked there in bonds of enchantment by his lover. Alas, the cave has become lost with the passage of time but many still hear Merlin clanking his chains on Merlin’s Hill.

  ‘I’m sure as hell glad you chose this place,’ said Merlin when we sat opposite him. It was one of those picnic benches with low seats on either side, and the whole contraption see-sawed slightly as the weight of our bodies counterbalanced his.

  ‘I’m sick and tired of that wild man of the woods lark, so I’m looking forward to a stroll around the farm and a bite to eat,’ he said.

  ‘By the way,’ he added thoughtfully, stroking his right eyebrow, ‘what do you get if you cross a wizard with a dinosaur?’

  My brain fogged with puzzlement. ‘No idea,’ I answered.

  ‘Tyrannosaurus hex!’

  I could hardly believe it. A Merlin who told cheesy jokes? I was incredulous. But he was full of chi
ldish humour, as I was about to find out.

  Merlin studied me with his penetrating eyes and said:

  ‘I hear you’re a bit of a wizard yourself, with the sandwiches. And the cakes too!’

  I blushed modestly. ‘I’m sure you could do a whole lot better.’

  ‘I’m sure I could,’ he said comfortably, ‘but when you’ve made sandwiches for the entire court of Camelot for well over a thousand years you tend to run out of inspiration.’

  There was something about the timbre of his voice which reminded me of someone else, but I couldn’t figure it out.

  ‘Adam Phillips,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘I’ve been masquerading as the well-known Cardiff writer and psychoanalyst at a motorway service station in Scotland and at the ferry terminal in Holyhead.’

  I laughed heartily. ‘That must be very enjoyable,’ I said. ‘Being able to pop up wherever and whenever you want.’

  ‘It has distinct disadvantages too,’ he said morosely.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as this foolish errand you’re about to send me on.’

  ‘You know about it? Of course you do… you’ve already been to the future, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes – but don’t ask me what’s going to happen. I can’t tell you that, any more than I could tell Arthur himself. And look what happened to him, poor sod – sent off to an island. I think it’s called extraordinary rendition nowadays. He’s waiting to liberate you all, if he’s ever called upon. Modern society has got it all wrong. Arthur is just a symbol of fair play and justice – concepts which are as alive as ever, but people couldn’t be bothered, could they? It’s you lot who’ve gone to sleep, not him. Nobody seems to care a toss.’

  He sounded quite angry.

  ‘Olly…’ I urged him to say something about my friend.

  ‘No news. I’m allowed to tell you, however, that she’s well and trying to be happy. She’ll pop up in your life again very soon. Lovely girl. Great taste in music, though I’m more of a Dolly Parton man myself.’

  ‘Where is she?’ I asked anxiously.

  He pressed a finger to his lips and merely whispered ‘Shhh…’

  He allowed a few seconds to pass, and then added: ‘Incidentally, if you want some advice, give up the wells thing and have a go at caves. You might get somewhere, though memories aren’t all they’re cracked up to be you know. They can do you more harm than good, just remember that!’

  He sat quietly, looking at a group of visitors.

  ‘Another thing,’ he said, picking his nose in an absent-minded way, ‘you’re dealing with some very old symbols here. Don’t you think you should update your references?’

  ‘But I think wells are quite relevant,’ I said. ‘They reflect changing times. They started off as pagan symbols, then they became Christian symbols, and when science came along they became spas – scientific symbols. Now they’re forgotten places. I ask you, Merlin, is it better to have ignorance and a sense of wonder, or knowledge and cold cynicism as we have today?’

  He guffawed at me.

  ‘Myths, wells, rainbows, caves… old hat, my friend. You need something contemporary. You know what you remind me of?’

  I looked at him expectantly.

  ‘You remind me of a child playing with one of those match-the-shape toys – you know, those boxes with holes in them and kids have to push square bits of wood, or round bits, whatever, into the holes. The problem is that your shapes are all wrong – you’re standing there, trying to push your old bits of wood into the holes but they won’t go in because they’re the wrong size and the wrong shape. You’ve got to move on, use different shapes and symbols. It’s the same with your sanity, mate. It’s a lesson I learnt a long time ago, a bloody long time ago. Sanity is all about using the right symbols. If your head is full of field symbols, or flower symbols, or peace symbols, then you’ve got no hope at all if you’re suddenly pushed into a battlefield – and that’s what urban society is, after all – you’ve got no chance of matching the symbols because there are no flowers or fields left, no peace either. Get my drift?’

  I nodded, but his line of thought was too difficult to follow. Why were my symbols all wrong? Was I supposed to use television symbols, or mobile phone symbols – modern plastic symbols?

  ‘That time you went mad,’ I said, ‘what happened?’

  He took quite some time to answer my question.

  I pressed him further. ‘You saw something awful? Something really terrible?’

  He nodded, slowly.

  ‘Monstrum horribile nimis. A sight horrible beyond measure.’

  ‘What was it?’

  Again, he looked at me for a lingering moment, as if he was weighing me up – trying to get the measure of me.

  ‘Something from the past, Duxie, something from the past. That’s why you should be careful. You’re playing with fire. The past is a minefield. Just be careful, OK?’

  I needed to think about this, so to buy time I unzipped my rucksack and spread a picnic on the table between us. I’d even packed a small white linen cloth, and Merlin gave a bit of a girlish giggle and said in a camp sort of voice: ‘I haven’t been treated this well for ages duckie.’

  I put his packed lunch in front of him and he unwrapped it slowly, melodramatically, putting his finger into his mouth and rolling his eyes with mock-childishness. He really was a complete idiot, an absolute buffoon.

  He picked up a roll, gingerly, and held it within an inch of his eyes, pretending to examine it in microscopic detail.

  ‘My, my, my. A home-baked poppy seed roll,’ he said in a shock-and-awe sort of voice, adding sarcastically: ‘Delia Smith recipe – if I’m not mistaken, Norwich City use these as practice balls. Only joking!’

  He took a bite and munched away. ‘Lovely cheese – cambazola, right?’

  As usual, he was dead right. ‘And hey, there’s some mango chutney in there too! You little tinker! A real surprise – that’s what you are! I’m well impressed!’

  He demolished the roll and reached for another.

  ‘Just as well you didn’t put any ham in them – I can’t touch the stuff, can’t even think about pigs without feeling suicidal. I’m sure you understand why. Years living alone with a pigling ain’t no good for nobody. Christ, how I miss bacon butties. My dear little pig died years ago but I still carry his grunt around with me (he points to his breast pocket), as a reminder of our times together. Rude bedfellow or not, he gave me all the love he could…’

  Merlin dropped his head and covered his eyes with his right hand.

  I commiserated with him by patting his shoulder and saying ‘There, there…’

  ‘Only joking!’ he said, whipping his hand away and grinning manically. He really was potty.

  ‘What do you get if you cross a snowman with a vampire?’ he asked.

  ‘No idea,’ I said wearily.

  ‘Frostbite!’

  I buried my head in my hands. I’d expected something better than this.

  As a diversion I asked him to do a trick.

  ‘With water?’ he asked, teasingly.

  ‘Yes, fine,’ I replied, expecting something marvellous. A wave of the wand, a flash of beautiful light, a tiny fairy ice-skating in the tumbler of water in front of me, perhaps. Instead, he ambled over to a nearby horse-chestnut tree. After sitting down again he opened his right hand and revealed a few strips of bark taken from the twigs of the tree. He gave them to me and nodded to the glass of water in front of me.

  ‘Go on, put them in,’ he said.

  I eased the twig-bark into the water, and let it soak for a while. It was magic: very simple magic, but undoubtedly impressive; after a while the water took on a fantastically pretty sky-blue fluorescence. I was amazed.

  ‘This is the only sort of magic I do, actually,’ he said. ‘Natural magic. It’s your age which has added the flash bang wallop stuff. You’re all children now, not just the young.’

  I questioned him further.

  �
��Is it true that you became invisible when you climbed into your apple tree?’ I asked, perhaps a little naively, trying to maintain the conversation.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ he said. ‘That story goes back a long way you know – to an ancient hope that fleeing warriors could climb to the tops of trees and vanish, or turn into eagles and soar to safety. We’ve wanted to escape from something or other ever since we came down from the trees, Duxie. And the apple tree is the Celtic fruit of immortality… the island where Arthur was taken – Afallon – means the island of apples. There are apple stories from all over the world.’

  ‘Adam and Eve… ’ I said.

  ‘Yes, and elsewhere too. In Norse mythology there’s a story about Odin, king of Heaven, and his little brother Loki, god of fire, sliding down a rainbow from Heaven to a green hill on Earth to go camping. There’s an eagle and some apples in that too… these stories are very primitive memories. Have you ever dreamt about falling?

  ‘Yes, of course I have.’

  ‘It’s one of the commonest types of dream Duxie – and it goes back millions of years, to the time when we were clambering about in the trees.’

  ‘You mean this dream goes back to when we were monkeys?’

  ‘Too right mate.’

  Merlin scoffed the last of the cambazola and mango chutney rolls, then looked expectantly in my direction.

  ‘Yes?’ I said, innocently.

  ‘Would I be right in thinking that you have a freshly-baked cake in that bag of yours, a nice, squidgy, dark brown chocolaty sort of cake, or has my sixth sense let me down? – and if it has I’ll be bitterly disappointed, because:

  a) it has never let me down once, in thirteen hundred years, and

  b) I hear that Duxie makes exceedingly good cakes.’

  He drummed his fingers on the table lightly as I pulled out my cake tin, levered off the lid, and fetched a miniature candle from my bag. I stabbed it into the centre of the cake and lit it. He looked at me quizzically.

  ‘That’s for the 1,432 birthdays you’ve had since you lost the plot at the Battle of Arfderydd,’ I said.